Seasoning Wood

[NHMike]

I typically like to let my wood sit at least a year split and stacked. However, I just bought a moisture meter to see where my wood is at.

I have pulled various pieces out of different stacks and checked the outside of the wood, and then split it to check the inside. I have not had a reading yet over 19%. The bulk of it is 15% - 17%. Being in NH I am not sure how much drier it will get.

As a test I checked some wood I had that is 3 years old and that reading was 15%.

For those who use the meter, what % do you shoot for to be considered seasoned?

 

[1960olds]

Anything under 20% is good to go. Looks like your in business!

 

[CTYank]

I typically like to let my wood sit at least a year split and stacked. However, I just bought a moisture meter to see where my wood is at.

I have pulled various pieces out of different stacks and checked the outside of the wood, and then split it to check the inside. I have not had a reading yet over 19%. The bulk of it is 15% - 17%. Being in NH I am not sure how much drier it will get.

As a test I checked some wood I had that is 3 years old and that reading was 15%.

For those who use the meter, what % do you shoot for to be considered seasoned?

More important than the time the wood spends air-drying is where. Exposure to summer winds is key. Direct sun is a big plus.

Lumber processors talk of either air or kiln drying, never of seasoning.

Once it's as dry as possible outdoors, wood can dry to much lower MC indoors near the stove. Modern stoves, IME, burn better as the wood gets drier. When it gets fed to my stove, it's mostly down around 10% dry-basis or lower. Some of it doesn't budge the MM.

 

[Fred Wright]

I don't use the MM much anymore. The stacks are 2 years old before they get used anyway, usually read 20% or thereabouts when I checked it.

The climate here is very humid. I've never gotten a MC reading below 18%.

 

[zogger]

Mine whenever it hits the stove is in the teens. Stuff on the wall behind the stove for a few days is obviously lower, but..I never checked it! I will this winter. Usually rotate a three day supply, as one day is burnt, another one comes in, back and forth across the stack behind the stove.

 

[svk]

I typically like to let my wood sit at least a year split and stacked. However, I just bought a moisture meter to see where my wood is at.

I have pulled various pieces out of different stacks and checked the outside of the wood, and then split it to check the inside. I have not had a reading yet over 19%. The bulk of it is 15% - 17%. Being in NH I am not sure how much drier it will get.

As a test I checked some wood I had that is 3 years old and that reading was 15%.

For those who use the meter, what % do you shoot for to be considered seasoned?

Anything under 20% is fine but the lower the better.

Lowest I've seen in my piles is 14% that was stacked with top covered for 4 years. Depending on where you are at will determine what the minimum MC will be.

 

[066blaster]

I typically like to let my wood sit at least a year split and stacked. However, I just bought a moisture meter to see where my wood is at.

I have pulled various pieces out of different stacks and checked the outside of the wood, and then split it to check the inside. I have not had a reading yet over 19%. The bulk of it is 15% - 17%. Being in NH I am not sure how much drier it will get.

As a test I checked some wood I had that is 3 years old and that reading was 15%.

For those who use the meter, what % do you shoot for to be considered seasoned?

What was the most recent stuff you cut reading? Like 3 month stuff 6 month stuff?

 

[Whitespider]

Moisture meters... the ones you can't calibrate to the material being tested... are a frigging' joke‼
If'n you would have tested the day you split 'n' stacked the stuff, and then tested it now, you might have some vague idea of how much moisture it has lost... but there ain't no friggin' way in hell it can tell you what the actual moisture content is.
Gadgets?? Really?? LMFAO‼
*

 

[NHMike]

Trees were cut down a year ago. The logs were stacked in the woods for the winter. I skidded them out in April, bucked them up and split them. The stacks are in the sun all day, and they do get quite a bit of wind.

I am hoping to get back in the woods to drop some more trees so I can stack the logs for the winter. I will take some readings and also split some and keep a record of it to see what happens.

The readings I took are pretty much from the splitting I did in April. It might have streatched into May by a week or so.

 

[haveawoody]

My moisture meter is a hammer
Wood makes a distinctive ring noise when hit when it's dry VS damp VS semi dry.

The lower the moisture the better to a point.
Two summers ago when we had 8 months of summer I bet my MM if I had one would have been single digits and the hammer ring also said very very dry.
First month I burnt that early fall fires were to fast and hot, even with pretty dense hardwood fires tended to be to hot and fast.
A damp November got things back to normal but I'm guessing if your MM reading ever gets less than 10 it's to dry.
To dry is possible.

 

[CTYank]

My moisture meter is a hammer
Wood makes a distinctive ring noise when hit when it's dry VS damp VS semi dry.

The lower the moisture the better to a point.
Two summers ago when we had 8 months of summer I bet my MM if I had one would have been single digits and the hammer ring also said very very dry.
First month I burnt that early fall fires were to fast and hot, even with pretty dense hardwood fires tended to be to hot and fast.
A damp November got things back to normal but I'm guessing if your MM reading ever gets less than 10 it's to dry.
To dry is possible.

IME, most definitely not. Much of my wood, before it's brought in to sit near the stove for a few weeks, is somewhere around 10%.
It burns pretty well. But then ...

After slow-roasting indoors for a bit, many splits don't budge the MM. Really burn great: light readily, and I can drop the primary air down to "cruise" setting after a minute or two. Bonsoir.

I'm guessing that it helps a lot to have a stove with an insulated firebox and good airflow design. Water is a lousy fuel.

I'm thinking the "too dry" thing is like "pine generates creosote"- a wives' tale. I don't buy either.

 

[BillNole]

...I'm thinking the "too dry" thing is like "pine generates creosote"- a wives' tale. I don't buy either.

Obviously, that's your prerogative, but it doesn't mean it's not true...

For similar reasons to those mentioned by Woody above, I too find that wood can indeed be too dry for my use. In a well sealed firebox with an efficient air control system (damper) in place, I'm sure you can control the burn quite well. In my current home, I have an open fireplace, with no glass doors. It's gonna burn to it's own level with my only control being how much wood I put in and how I place it. There are a few other things I can do, one of which is mixing in wood of varying btu ratings and moisture content. If the wood is all very dry, it'll roar like a jet engine and get hotter 'n Hades in no time, if I don't take other steps to cool things off a bit.

I might put an insert in one day, but everytime I shop I get frustrated at the lousy attitude of the local places I've visited and the cost for doing so. Plus, we really like the open aspect and it provides more heat than we need in most instances and we end up cracking a window somewhere...

To each his own!

 

[CTYank]

Obviously, that's your prerogative, but it doesn't mean it's not true...

For similar reasons to those mentioned by Woody above, I too find that wood can indeed be too dry for my use. In a well sealed firebox with an efficient air control system (damper) in place, I'm sure you can control the burn quite well. In my current home, I have an open fireplace, with no glass doors. It's gonna burn to it's own level with my only control being how much wood I put in and how I place it. There are a few other things I can do, one of which is mixing in wood of varying btu ratings and moisture content. If the wood is all very dry, it'll roar like a jet engine and get hotter 'n Hades in no time, if I don't take other steps to cool things off a bit.

I might put an insert in one day, but everytime I shop I get frustrated at the lousy attitude of the local places I've visited and the cost for doing so. Plus, we really like the open aspect and it provides more heat than we need in most instances and we end up cracking a window somewhere...

To each his own!

Nothing to get defensive about. I hope I made it clear that I don't feed wood to a disposal unit/emissions generator. (Yes, open fireplaces are just that- well documented.) The huge amount of cooling air does it.

Of course you can control things by means of the size and amount of the splits you chuck in. Fewer and/or larger cross-section splits will do it. Or maybe an "Indian" fire pump.

I keep working on a friend to put any decent insert in her wood disposal unit. No joy there. So the splits I drop off are BIG, and dry.

 

[BillNole]

Nothing to get defensive about. I hope I made it clear that I don't feed wood to a disposal unit/emissions generator. (Yes, open fireplaces are just that- well documented.) The huge amount of cooling air does it.

Of course you can control things by means of the size and amount of the splits you chuck in. Fewer and/or larger cross-section splits will do it. Or maybe an "Indian" fire pump.

I keep working on a friend to put any decent insert in her wood disposal unit. No joy there. So the splits I drop off are BIG, and dry.

Any heating appliance/device that's not used properly can and will create a ton of emissions. (Who's getting defensive?)

I've no doubt that mine produces more than your average stove, but it's not nearly as bad as most I observe, based on the visual of chimney expulsion. I keep a hot fire and don't let it smolder all night as many older stoves do. I generally prefer my splits smaller than some, but mix in various sizes to help in controlling things the way I like it.

I'm not interested in telling anyone else what to spend their money on, nor hearing it from others. Mine works for me and I take care not to fill the neighborhood with noxious fumes anytime. In fact, in most instances you'd never know a fire was burning in our house from outside, other than the first few minutes after we put in a fire and it's heating up. You should see what it's like when some of the neighbors start burning yard waste, in particular wet grass clippings... Phewie! All in all, I'm happy!

 

[haveawoody]

CTYank,

That year of the never ending summer I was burning from stacks outdoors.
The wood didn't sit near the woodstove like it normally would to get it's last drying.

I never had an out of control fire with such dry firewood but I was burning sugar maple in shoulder season to try and slow fires down, normal shoulder wood was pretty out of control even with air set 0n nothing.
Sugar maple for that month and a bit burnt much like shoulder wood and lasted much like shoulder wood.

I can only imagine other peoples fires that year stuck burning softwood.

A rare combination of long sunny summer to make such dry firewood and even at that a damp month and everything back to normal.
I think furniture wood indoor for multiple years indoors only ever gets to about 8% moisture so I guess it was a little bit like burning that. LOL

I would not want to burn firewood directly from a kiln before it had a few days to even it's moisture content.

 

[Whitespider]

Much of my wood, before it's brought in to sit near the stove for a few weeks, is somewhere around 10%.
After slow-roasting indoors for a bit, many splits don't budge the MM.

That just illustrates my point about moisture meters...
Short of living in Arizona, the only way you're gonna' dry wood below about 12% is in an oven or kiln. Wood is hygroscopic, it can only get as dry as relative humidity (RH) and temperature allow. At 80° and 50% RH wood will reach a state of equilibrium moisture content (EMC) at about 10%. But, wood is exposed to long-term (seasonal) and short-term (daily) changes in relative humidity and temperature... most nights, in most parts of the country, as temperatures drop, the RH approaches 100%. If we say a typical overnight drops to about 60° and RH rises to 85%... the EMC of wood under those conditions will be 18%. So, if your (summer) climate averages 80°/50% RH during the day, and 60°/85% RH at night, about the best you could possibly achieve is 12% MC (real world, I'm bettin' more like 15%). And, a day with 50% RH 'round here is a very rare and dry day; somewhere around 70% RH for a couple hours in the afternoon is more typical... I'm not gonna' look up averages for out east, but I'm bettin' 50% RH is damn low there also.

It is possible to cheat the relationship between temperature/RH and the EMC by a couple of points with direct sunlight, but if your wood is covered or under a roof, EMC is controlled by the temperature and RH of the surrounding air... period. I don't know how low your MM is supposed to read, but even wood sitting for an extended time in a stove room (say a constant 90° and a constant 35% RH) can only achieve about 7% EMC. But if your stove room cools off every day while you're at work or sleeping... well, 12% EMC (maybe 10%, but I doubt it) is as good as it's gonna' get.

If your MM is saying your outdoor-seasoned firewood is at 10% MC, and then it's saying your stove-warmed wood is zero or low single digits... it's flat azz wrong. Unless it's possible to calibrate the MM to the material, density, specific gravity, thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, and lord only knows what else a moisture meter is a joke. The good moisture meters designed for use on wood have a dial or dials for calibration and come with a chart listing different species of wood... you locate the species you're testing on the chart and it gives you the settings for the moisture meter. A moisture meter that can't be calibrated won't tell you any more then the technique used by haveawoody... just bang two pieces together and listen to the sound.
*

 

[CRThomas]

I typically like to let my wood sit at least a year split and stacked. However, I just bought a moisture meter to see where my wood is at.

I have pulled various pieces out of different stacks and checked the outside of the wood, and then split it to check the inside. I have not had a reading yet over 19%. The bulk of it is 15% - 17%. Being in NH I am not sure how much drier it will get.

As a test I checked some wood I had that is 3 years old and that reading was 15%.

For those who use the meter, what % do you shoot for to be considered seasoned?

Your wood will only dry out side split to you average air percentage like ours in southern Illinois is 15 percent

 

[CRThomas]

I bundle firewood and dry is better customers that want a pretty fire to set by. Need good dry wood to get the greene wood some clown sold them and told them it was seasoned. Last Jan / Feb I sold thousands of bundles to people to get there greene wood started. I can kiln dry greene Ash down to 14 to 15 % any thing below that is a waste of time in the kiln. I can cook out the water in a rank split stack and sticked. The reason it is no reason to dry below 15 % is they stack the bundles in cold garage or patio or out side so it stays at 15 %. I can cook the water out of 2 ranks of firewood in 24 hours. I don't dry wood I cook the water out of it like a low profile pressure cooker. I bring the temperature close to lighting just a low discharge to push out the water out. I have to keep working with my heat and discharge fan to not waste heat and the proper discharge of air to pull moister out. (remind you I only do Ash the King of Firewood my customers love that wood)

 

[Snap]

New General meter here and 2 year old fully wrapped pile is showing 9%.
Standing dead wood that I cut down today shows 16% inside a fresh split.
And we had snowy rain for a couple days this week here in southern New England.

 

[CTYank]

Your wood will only dry out side split to you average air percentage like ours in southern Illinois is 15 percent

Not so at all. Much more dependant on temp, and of course access to airflow. Are you talking ambient RH as "air percentage"?

No matter what Spidey says it's possible around here to get the MC down to the low teens outdoors. He too is hung up on ambient RH,
and preaching without a license again.

@haveawoody I've never had a problem controlling a fire in a stove of mine because of low MC. Ever. Gotta suspect your control problem is combo of how the wood is placed and/or the stove itself. Can't make it too dry for me, thank you very much. Water is a lousy fuel.